YORBA LINDA : School Expects City to Keep Campus Shut

Officials at Fairmont Private School do not expect the city to allow it to reopen its Valley View campus, which was closed by the city in August for operating without the required permits.

Although the Planning Commission is scheduled to consider the school’s application for a conditional use permit Feb. 23, school officials said they don’t expect to be allowed to return to the site, in a shopping center on Valley View Street.

“We have heard the Planning Department staff is recommending we not get the (permit),” said Executive Director David Jackson. “With that recommendation and the political climate that exists there, we think there is no way they can let us in.”

Jackson and the school were lambasted by the City Council in August when they sought a temporary occupancy certificate, which would have allowed them to operate the school while correcting several deficiencies and seeking the required permit.

“How in the world could this school operate the last couple of years without the required permits?” Councilman Mark Schwing asked then. “Thank God we haven’t had a fire or the fingers would have been pointing at the city.”

The council voted 5 to 0 to deny the school’s request.

Since August, Fairmont has been leasing space for its 125 first- through fifth-grade students at Vineyard Christian School in Anaheim. The cost is $10,000 a month, and the school must also continue paying $6,700 a month rent for the classrooms it can’t use in Yorba Linda.

“We have to honor our lease until the city denies us the conditional use permit,” Jackson said. “Plus, we made about $30,000 in improvements there before we were shut down.”

Fairmont was shut down after a routine inspection by the city of two new classrooms. Building plans submitted to the city indicated the classrooms were to be used for office space, which has less stringent safety and fire requirements. The inspectors, after determining that the rooms were being used for classes, found several violations, including inadequate fire walls and no fire alarms. The school was ordered closed a few days later.

It then appealed to the City Council for permission to correct the violations, then open. But the council refused, saying Fairmont would have to go through the entire conditional use permit process.

Some affiliated with the school believe the city is retaliating for a suit stemming from a November, 1990, car accident in which three young students were struck while crossing Valley View Street with a teacher. The students were returning from an outing at a park across the street.

The parents of the boys, one of whom died several days later, sued the city and the school, and the school filed a cross-complaint against the city.

But City Atty. Leonard Hampel dismissed the retaliation charge as ridiculous, saying the city settled the three suits for about $12,500.